1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a guide rail for the roof opening system of a motor vehicle and a roof frame which encompasses the guide rail.
2. Description of Related Art
A guide rail of the type of interest here is used in roof opening systems (for example, a sliding roof), first of all, for holding drive and guide elements (for example, drive cable, sliding block, etc.) for one or more covers which can be displaced for clearing a roof opening. Moreover, such a guide rail can have, for example, water drainage functions within the framework of so-called “water management” of the roof opening system. Finally, with two such guide rails, each of which is located on respective side underneath the roof opening, running parallel to the lengthwise direction of the vehicle, together with a so-called frame front part, and optionally, other components, a frame structure (for example, a sliding roof frame) is often formed. Such a structure, which is also called a roof frame below, can be used advantageously for mechanical stabilization of the vehicle roof and for integration of other components of the roof opening system (for example, electric drive, sensors, water drainage, etc.).
Guide rails for roof opening systems are known, for example, from German Patent DE 40 14 487 C1 (which corresponds to U.S. Pat. No. 5,104,178), German Patent Application DE 199 43 715 A1 (which corresponds to U.S. Pat. No. 6,425,630), German Patent Application DE 198 21 694 A1 and German Patent Application DE 101 44 742 A1 (which corresponds to U.S. Pat. No. 6,601,911). These known guide rails are made in one piece. Thus, the guide rail known from DE 199 43 715 A1 and counterpart U.S. Pat. No. 6,425,630 is made, for example, as a metal section which is cut to the required length. As a result, there arises the advantage of a relatively simple manufacturing capacity, for example, as an extruded section which has been cut to length.
The disadvantage in the known guide rail is that a number of the individual guideway sections and/or cable channel sections are provided, but all of them are not used, for every roof opening system. Aside from the associated material consumption, in practice, this often increases the installation height which is required by the guide rail; this is problematical especially in use for the roof opening system of a motor vehicle. The circumstance that, viewed over the length of the guide rail, all of the existing guideways or cable channels or the like are not always needed leads to the fact that the “sum” of these guideways and cable channels determines (and increases) the installation height of the entire guide rail. Moreover, in a rail which has been simply produced as a rail section, major changes of this section (cross section) over the length of the rail are essentially not possible and/or are associated with considerable reworking effort. Finally, in the guide rails of the known type, complex reworking (for example, cutting) is often necessary in order to match the section of the guide rail to the constricted installation space or to integrate additional parts, such as locking blocks, cranks, etc.